As a child reared in Pentecostalism I was fed a steady diet of apocalyptic pre-tribulation rapture dispensationalism. As a young adult studying for ministry I read all of the required books to properly understand the “last days” – The Dake Annotated Reference Bible, the books of Hal Lindsey, commentaries by John Walvoord, and J. Dwight Pentecost’s Things to Come. By the time I was in my late twenties I had rejected the dispensational scheme.
It just never made sense. As I read the Biblical texts I just couldn’t see how dispensationalism accurately reflected the redemptive narrative. So, I ventured beyond the writings of Pentecostal and Evangelical fundamentalism and discovered a vast, wonderful, treasure of Christian eschatological thought that was willing to embrace mystery (some things we just can’t know) and affirm the second advent of Jesus Christ and New Creation.
The Church of God Declaration of Faith (1948) was formulated to express Pentecostal/Evangelicalism that was profoundly informed by the prophecy movement of the late 19th century and the Fundamentalist movement of the early 20th century. The articles of faith that express our eschatology declare that we believe
-
In the premillennial second coming of Jesus. First, to resurrect the righteous dead and to catch away the living saints to Him in the air. Second, to reign on the earth a thousand years.
-
In the bodily resurrection, eternal life for the righteous, and eternal punishment for the wicked.
While I admit that these articles of faith were meant to express the basic tenets of premillennial dispensationalism; it must be acknowledged that these words do not canonize dispensationalism. For example, the word’s “pre-tribulation rapture” do not appear in the Declaration of Faith. So, there is room for movement to develop a Pentecostal eschatology that faithfully expresses the redemptive narrative of Holy Scripture. Someone might object that dispensationalism is implied and that the body of theological literature produced by Church of God ministers is dispensational. I concede the point, but it remains that the words of the Declaration of Faith allow for some re-interpretation of eschatology. In other words, I don’t have to embrace pre-tribulation dispensationalism to be faithful to the Declaration of Faith.
My objections to dispensationalism would fill a book; so, I will make only a few observations here. First, as I have written earlier, the nature of dispensationalism requires that it be re-interpreted decade after decade based on world events. Through the 1960s & 1970s the Church of God Evangel regularly featured articles that pointed to “signs of the times” in which such events as the election of a Catholic president (1960) to the descent of Skylab (1979) were heralded as prophetic evidence of the imminent return of Christ. Hal Lindsey published The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon which detailed how the geo-politics of the decade pointed to the return of Christ. The most recent writings of John Hagee follow this tradition. Just as Skylab fell from the sky without long term prophetic significance, I suspect that the hysteria of the “four blood moons” will fade as well (see here).
The most significant objection to dispensationalism is that it denies the solidarity of the redemptive mission of Jesus Christ to the whole world – “to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). In writing to the Roman believers, Paul declared
. . . if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).
To whom is Paul addressing these words? To the Jews, the descendants of Abraham who have not accepted Christ (Romans 9:1ff). These words are placed in the center of Paul’s theological reflection on Israel’s relationship to the Gospel (Romans 9-11). Paul is declaring that to be faithful to God’s covenant, Jews must confess “Jesus is Lord.” Yes, “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26); but “Israel” is not defined as a nation-state geographically located in the Middle East. Israel is defined as the people of God – Jews and Gentiles justified in Christ (see here).
Pentecostal eschatology should not be focused on the shifting sands of geo-politics and extraordinary phenomena, like falling spacecraft and blood moons. Jesus told us that these signs are “merely the beginning of birth pangs” (Matthew 24:4). Instead, Jesus has encouraged us to focus on His mission: “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14; also Acts 1:6-8). Pentecostal eschatology must envision the mission of Jesus Christ and his church – the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).
If you are interested in further reading, I suggest:
D. William Faupel. The Everlasting Gospel: The Significance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought. Sheffield Academic Press, 1996.
Matthew K. Thompson. Kingdom Come: Revisioning Pentecostal Eschatology. Deo Publishing, 2010.
